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After several linkage failures in the past 6 months, and a general dislike of the many fixes, updates, and non-original parts done to my horn in the past, I decided to go "all-in" and order a new set of everything from Willson.

It took a bit of patience to place the order, but I didn't mind -- they are busy, and I'm sure that selling parts is not their primary focus. Once I placed the order though, it arrived in exactly 1 week, and that's very cool. Here's what I received today:





I'm especially excited about the new paddles -- hadn't seen ones like this from Willson before, just the "saucer" or "black pad" styles of paddles. These are more slender, and seem like the ergonomics will be quite nice. Plus, they were even nice enough to engrave my serial number on the new paddle bar for me. Overall quality is top-notch, and exactly what you'd expect from Willson. This was NOT inexpensive, but it seems totally worth it.

I'm on the fence about getting the parts silver plated -- seemed like a good idea initially, but there's not much that is raw brass here, so it doesn't really bother me, and I might just get it installed as-is. If anything, just the thumb ring.

Just thought people may find this interesting since there's been a lot of talk recently about whether or not they can buy parts from certain companies. The answer from Willson was certainly "yes," and I bought it from them directly. Just a dude ready to send some CHF.

Awesome, Bort - I'm glad you decided to "take the plunge" !

Best of luck to you on your project - - -

ValveSlide wrote:Be sure to take before and after pictures...

Will do!

bloke wrote:...and then you can sell it.

Won't do! (well, not for a while...)

bort wrote:Won't do! (well, not for a while...)

Magic 8-Ball says "Signs point to Maybe."

Nice! It does my heart good to see both the quality and speed of delivery of the parts.

bort wrote:

ValveSlide wrote:Be sure to take before and after pictures...

Will do!

bloke wrote:...and then you can sell it.

Won't do! (well, not for a while...)

Nice looking parts....glad it worked out!

Very classy. A good decision to get those solid Willson parts. Of course it returns a certain value back to the instrument and should give you a rather "righteous" feeling. Those paddles are elegant looking. I hope they are also comfortable. Congrats on your success.

Thanks guys -- I'm looking forward to getting this put back together. I think it's going to be pretty sharp looking, not to mention more comfortable and more functional. An expensive project, but hey, it's an expensive tuba!

Quick update -- finally got the tuba into the shop to get the new parts installed. Should get it back in about 2 weeks. Very excited to see how it turns out. The old stuff was really in poor shape, so this is now a necessary repair, and not just an upgrade.

Will post more when I get it back!

Do those stop arms actually pinch the rotor stem?

3 of the 5 stop arms had to be silver soldered and retapped last spring, and who knows what else has been done over the other 15 years this tuba has existed. Maybe the old ones were okay after being repaired, but I wasn't willing to find out.

I decided to not get it silver plated either. Most of the parts are nickel silver and look just fine to me. The brass parts are just the stop arms, the 5th valve bracket and linkage and thumb ring. Nothing huge or super visible that would bother me too much.

Well, that's what I say for now. If it does bother me, then I'll consider it to be the poor man's gold plated accent package.

I had originally asked Willi for silver plated parts (just in case he would go for it). He said no, and once I saw it in person, it was kind of small deal stuff.

Maybe later on, if I like using the thumb ring, I will get that plated?

Update: I will be picking up my tuba later today!

Started a new thread for the update:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77223" target="_blank